American astronomer Joseph H. Taylor Jr. was the co-discoverer, with Russell A. Hulse in 1974, of the first known binary pulsar. Registered under the rather innocuous title PSR 1913+16, this discovery has had a major impact in scientific circles. It allowed the development, by Taylor and others, of a means to detect and measure the gravitational waves as these two degenerate neutron stars orbit each other and interact.

In 1978, in an unprecedented test, Taylor provided the first verifiable evidence supporting Albert Einsteinís General Theory of Relativity (also called the Theory of Gravitation), showing the magnetic aspect of gravity. This work, which has practical ramifications in cosmology, fundamental astrometry, gravitational physics, stellar evolution, and time-keeping metrology, earned the Nobel Prize for Taylor and Hulse in 1993. Taylor continues to head pulsar investigations at Princeton, where his group has discovered myriad pulsars.